The ISU volleyball team started the Blue Raider Bash with a tight 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-22) loss to 15th-ranked Middle Tennessee State but finished it with a big bang.

The Cyclones (5-2) swept Appalachian State (25-12, 25-14, 26-24) and then handed Florida International its first loss of the season by not allowing them to reach double digits in the last two sets (25-18, 25-9, 25-6).

“Against Florida Internatioal, our serving was pretty impressive and we pretty much dismantled their offense,” coach Christy Johnson said. “I was excited to see us play that well against a pretty good team; Florida International was receiving votes in the national poll, so to beat them by that much was good.”

In their victory over the Golden Panthers, Iowa State hit .451, committing only four errors, including none in the last two sets. The Cyclones also held FIU to .071 hitting and outblocked them 9.5 to one, along with serving up a season-high 11 aces.

“We have definitely emphasized serving the ball tougher this year, driving the ball low over the tape,” Johnson said. “That was one of our goals this year, not necessarily more aces, but just serving the ball tougher and getting the pass to the setter off the net.”

Mary Bisenius and Victoria Henson each had 12 kills and hit over .400, and libero Ashley Mass had 13 digs and a career-high five service aces. Jen Malcom had six kills on 13 attacks for a .462 hitting percentage, and that was the third of four matches this week in which Malcom did not commit an error.

Malcom was named to the all-tournament team, hitting .490 with 28 kills, and teammate Kaylee Manns was the other Cyclone named, dishing out 11.11 assists per game on the weekend.

Before defeating FIU on Saturday, the Cyclones swept the Appalachian State Mountaineers to get coach Christy Johnson’s 60th win of her career, making her the fastest coach in Iowa State history to that mark (102 matches).

Henson had 15 kills for the Cyclones and jumped out to big leads in both of the first two sets to take control of the match, before having to fight off a hard-charging ASU team in game three to finish the match.

The Cyclones were in all three games of their match with the host Blue Raiders of MTSU, but struggled with errors in losing three straight games by only a total of ten points.

Iowa State committed 24 hitting errors and six reception errors, while hitting only .125 to MTSU’s .226. Malcom was the only Cyclone in double figures, hitting 15 kills on .440 hitting. Mass had 13 digs in the loss as well.

“We weren’t real pleased with how we played against Middle Tennessee; we struggled against them at times,” Johnson said. “It was a good overall performance but it definitely pointed out some things we need to work on.”